Guanzhen 官箴

Guanzhen 官箴 "Admonitions to state officials", also known as Lüshen guanzhen 呂氏官箴, Lü sheren guanzhen 呂舍人官箴 or Lü Ronggong guanzhen 呂榮公官箴, is a handbook for officials compiled during the Song period 宋 (960-1279) by Lü Benzhong 呂本中 (1084-1145), original name Lü Dazhong 呂大中, courtesy name Juren 居仁, style Ziwei 紫微 or Donglai 東萊. Lü himself had served for many years as an official in the local government and had also written some books on education, like the Chunqiu jie 春秋解, Tongmeng xun 童蒙訓 or Shiyou yuanyuan lu 師友淵源錄.

His short book Guanzhen is an admonition (zhen 箴) to officials to behave pure, prudent and diligent. Lü's arguments are supported by many examples from history. It is included in the series Baichuan xuehai 百川學海, Shuofu 說郛, Siku quanshu 四庫全書 and Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編.

There is another book with the same title from the Ming period 明 (1368-1644), written by Zhu Zhanji 朱瞻基 (1398-1435), who is nobody else than the Xuande Emperor 宣德 (r. 1425-1435). His book came into being after the suppression of the rebellion of Zhu Gaoxu 朱高煦 (1380-1426), the Prince of Han 漢, and the appointment of grand coordinators (xunfu 巡撫) for the supervision of the provinces. The Xuande Emperor especially selected nine persons who were entrusted with the arrangement of bureaucratic rules for all important state offices, from the Chief Military Commission (dudufu 都督府) to the Confucian schools (ruxue 儒學).

These are arranged in 35 chapters. All officials were admonished to be assiduous in government affairs, to be incorruptible, to have a sense of responsibility and to do their duty. The book was finished in 1432 and was reprinted in 1538. It is finished by several laudatory and instructive poems written in the name of the emperor.

This book is described in the catalogue Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要, but not included in the Siku quanshu 四庫全書 corpus.